Are Influencers Driving Factor Of Social Commerce Growth?
Online stores and markets are experiencing greater competition than ever before. Amid the pandemic, many offline stores have opted for online platforms to cope with the circumstances. Hence, brands and their marketing professionals need to come up with new strategies to promote. Social commerce is one of those highly effective strategies. It is a part of the eCommerce Umbrella. It is a strategy where the products are bought on social platforms instead of redirecting to another app, which makes the purchase process easier.
Social commerce combined with Influencer marketing works wonders. Many brands have experienced a whopping high conversion. One such highly talked collaboration was Deepika Padukone x Sabhyasachi. Sabhyasachi leveraged Deepika’s brand image and audience to drive traffic to their platforms.
Nearly 72% of the users follow at least one influencer on social media platforms. This gives the brand a promising target audience which is dedicated only to their type of product. 84% of marketing professionals consider influencer marketing to be a proven strategy for better marketing results.
This is how influencers and users are helping social commerce to grow,
1. Made shopping easier
Social commerce apps have an in-app shopping feature that allows the user to buy then and there. This provision reduces the purchase procedure and drives greater sales. Social commerce platforms are improvising shopping experience everyday, like live streaming, video and picture reviews etc, tend to make purchase decisions easier.
2. Authenticity and trust
When recommended by a peer, the buyer trusts the product. Similarly, when an influencer suggests their followers or audience it induces trust in the brands. However, along with trust, authenticity is also tested with user-generated content. Samsung realized an opportunity in this scenario and launched a successful campaign. Keep reading to read the case study in detail.
3. Higher retention rate
As mentioned above, users trust the influencer and increase retention rate. There is 37% more chances of customer retention acquired through influencer marketing compared to traditional means. Influencers are like peers to their audience who engage with them daily, this creates a great influence on them and hence the retention rate boosts for the brands.
4. Rise in sales
Along with the retention rate follows the conversion rate. Once the customer's trust is won conversion rate experiences growth. Influencer marketing does is all.
One such case of successful influencer x band collaboration was OLA
Case study :Samsung x YouTube Influencers
Samsung wanted to spread awareness about their new launch, Samsung tab S7 & S7+ among their existing customers and also among potential customers. For the campaign they opted for influencer marketing strategy. The brand approached Tech Influencers like Technical Guruji, Trakin Tech, Gogi Rana and Technology Gyan for promotion. The influencers had to use the products and put up a review video on their YouTube channels. This showed their first-hand experience with the product and was very transparent to their audience. The reviews turned out to be social proof for the product's authenticity. Hence, trusting the brand wasn't difficult for the audience.
The influencers Samsung collaborated with are Mega and Macro influencers but small businesses and startups can approach micro and nano influencers. The target audience plays the major role and hence you need to select the right suit (Influencer) for your brand.
However, Influencer marketing is not only beneficial to the social commerce platforms but also other entities too. If planned and executed rightly the campaign can boost the brand image, customer loyalty and lastly sales.
(The given article is attributed to Jasmeet Thind, Co-Founder & Hustler, Coutloot and has been created exclusively for BW Disrupt website)
